226 SMYTH — PERICLES AND APOLLONIUS. [Oct. 7, 



" Read the conclusion, then ; 

 Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed, 

 As these before thee, thou thyself shalt bleed " (i, i^) 



In Godfrey of Viterbo, too, '* Antiochi regis scelerum problemata 

 legit, ''^ but there the riddles are read over the gate of the city where 

 they are inscribed. The Lapaume edition has it that the riddle 

 had been inscribed upon the gate of the city (quia questio condi- 

 tionis in porta civitatis scripta erat). In the Cretan version the 

 riddle is written upon the wall. Other versions, the Italian, Span- 

 ish, Bohemian, Copland, etc., repeat the same method of convey- 

 ing the riddle to Apollonius. Shakespeare is the only one who 

 speaks of the riddle as written upon paper ; all the others have it 

 written over the gate or on the wall. Lamprecht's reference indi- 

 cates that in some lost version the narrator had anticipated Shake- 

 speare in this invention. Lamprecht's lines quoted above may be 

 translated ''King Apollonius of whom the books still tell, whom 

 King Antioch pursued over seas because he told him a gruesome 

 riddle, which was written with covered words, in a letter.''^ They 

 stand thus in the Strassburg MS. of the Alexander. The Vorau 

 version omits the reference to the *' covered words " (bedecketen 

 worten) and reads, 'Mie solved a riddle in a letter" (missive). The 

 original meaning no doubt was, as in the lines above quoted, 

 that the riddle was communicated in a letter, but was misinter- 

 preted by Kinzel, who supposed the solution to be conveyed in a 

 letter, /. e. in a missive. The Basle edition also interprets after 

 this fashion and states explicitly ''darumb, daz er im sagtte und 

 im des sante brieff, daz er sin dochter beslieff " (because he told 

 him, and sent him a letter to that effect, that he, etc.).^ 



The first poet in Germany to work independently upon the Saga 

 was Heinrich von Neustadt, who finished his Apollonius von Tyr- 

 land (a poem of 20,893 verses) at the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century.^ 



Heinrich was a physician in Vienna, and naturally was interested 

 in the story of the resuscitation of Lucina, the wife of Apollonius. 

 In his poem he shows an interest in natural history, and introduces 



1 In Gower and Twine the riddle is spoken^ as in the Latin, not read. 



2Cf. Singer, p. 37. 



' Heinrich von ^o.yysX'x^X., Apollonius. von Goles Zzto^un/tfhev&usgegehen von 

 Joseph Strobl, Wien, 1875. Pudmenzky, Shakespeare's Pericles und der Apol- 

 lonius des Heinrich von Neustadt, Detmold, 1884. 



